A surveillance clip from inside Maricopa County’s ballot tabulation center has set off a public fight between county officials, an election group and Kari Lake.
Each side offers a different reading of what the footage shows.
We the People USA Alliance posted the video to X on Friday.
The group says it captured two county employees at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center at about 10:30 pm on Wednesday, October 7, plugging flash drives into computers.
According to the group, the employees had left the building earlier that evening and then returned.
The computers in the footage had already undergone logic and accuracy testing.
The group’s post opened with a headline-style announcement.
“BUSTED: Exclusive Video of Maricopa County BOS employees (toddler in tow) in highly secure Ballot Tabulation Center at 10:30pm inserting flash drives into computers (Post L&A) during an active election obtained by our source!” the group wrote.
The organization also made a claim about one of the employees. It said that person had previously been connected to allegations involving deleted election-related files after the 2020 election.
Maricopa County answered with a written statement that rejected any suggestion of wrongdoing. Officials described the employees’ activity as routine election work.
“As occurs in the weeks preceding an election, these employees were working on a legitimate election task, late into the night,” the county said in a statement. “These photos may be used on social media to imply wrongdoing. This is not the case. Know the facts, so you can vote confidently.”
Shelby Busch, a co-founder of We the People Alliance, then challenged that statement in comments to The Gateway Pundit. She identified two problems with it.
“There are two flaws with the Maricopa County Election Department’s statement of transparency. First, they fail to disclose to the public what this ‘legitimate election task’ was that required occurring late into the night, and second, they indicate this can be viewed 24/7 by the public; however, the feed published by WTP USA does not appear to be part of the public feeds.”
Busch also spelled out what her group does and does not claim to know.
“We do not presume to know what was on those flash drives, but what we do know is that secure computers were unlocked and external devices were inserted into highly sensitive systems late at night and without any public oversight. Additional video footage we obtained also raises heavy concern over the chain of custody of the external flash drive,” she added.
Lake entered the debate by reposting the video. She lost hotly contested races as the Republican nominee in Arizona’s most recent gubernatorial and senatorial elections.
“More shenanigans at the Maricopa county ballot tabulation center. Only through God’s intervention was this even discovered. This happened Wednesday night at 10:30 pm,” Lake wrote.
Maricopa County has faced scrutiny over its election procedures before.
In 2022, ballot-printing problems kept tabulators at some polling places from reading certain ballots on Election Day.
Lake later contested her 2022 loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs in the governor’s race.
During that challenge, the county acknowledged installing “new memory cards on its Election Day tabulators” on October 14, 17 and 18. Logic and accuracy testing had taken place on October 11.
Lake’s legal team argued that the changes made after testing raised concerns about compliance with election procedures. The county responded that the cards held the certified election program.
The county’s 2020 election also drew a forensic audit, which the state Senate mandated. Auditors found substantial evidence of irregularities in mail-in ballots.
That same audit criticized Maricopa officials for obstructing the review of electronic records.
Its report ultimately concluded that no actionable measures should be taken, even though it acknowledged the likelihood of abuses.
The county now stands by its account that the October 7 activity was a legitimate election task.
We the People USA Alliance, for its part, has not said what it believes was on the drives, and it continues to question the county’s explanation.
